


this sweet sweet craving

by raspbirry_pancakes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cake, Domestic Avengers, Established Relationship, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, I'm surprised that isn't a legit tag yet, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, M/M, Tony Angst, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark is bad with feelings, Tony-centric, like a lot of it, this is all about tony eating cake when he's sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:14:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24837505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raspbirry_pancakes/pseuds/raspbirry_pancakes
Summary: Obie guided Tony to the dining room table and reappeared with a knife and plate. He cut a delicate slice of cake, deposited it onto a plate,  and pushed it to Tony.Tony studied the piece. It caught just a bit of the bright red frosting of the ‘r’ in Birthday but the rest was gold, like the sun. His favorite colors.Tony didn’t know his mom knew what his favorite colors were.Obadiah pushed a fork into his hand and patted his shoulder. “I’ll be in the next room, kid.”It was a while after he left, two hours according to the clock, but two minutes according to Tony, when he finally reached forward and cut just a little corner off his piece, one that practically dripped with frosting.It tasted bitter the whole way down.___Tony doesn't need to deal with his problems, he has cake.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Avengers Team
Comments: 9
Kudos: 124





	this sweet sweet craving

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Cake by the Ocean" by DNCE

Tony remembers his seventeenth birthday like he remembers the periodic table, meaning that he has no trouble remembering it perfectly. 

He and Rhodey had spent the night before drinking up a storm, encouraged by his mother requesting him to visit for his birthday, and Tony having no idea how to deal with the tense and hostile mindfield that was him and his father’s relationship. 

The next day, Tony and Howard had gotten into a fight, and Howard told him to stay at college until he could learn to grow up. Maria sounded disappointed but not surprised, and said she’d speak to Howard about letting him come back at least for the holidays. 

Tony easily got drunk again that same night. 

Around Christmas time, Maria had worn Howard down until he (begrudging) agreed to let Tony visit. And all Tony remembers about the night of December 16th, 1991, was when he got a call from the police informing him that his parents were dead. 

And the whole world seemed to quiet. 

Going back home was the worst part. Home never felt like home, and with the absence of his mother it would falter to make even a faulty resemblance of one.

Not quite sure what to do with his parents’ things, Tony ended up keeping most of them, despite Obadiah’s promises that someone else could come sort through it all. But Tony felt it was a bad idea, Obie focused less on sentiment and materialistic things than most people, and he was sure that whoever he hired would be the same, if not more. 

When he was digging through the freezer, looking for something to eat while he continued sorting, Tony found a pristine white box. In it, a cake with Maria’s loopy handwriting reading _‘Happy 17th Birthday, Anthony!’_.

He must’ve stood there for a while, cold air spilling out into the kitchen, as the box idly dripped with condensation. After some time, Obie appeared behind him, looking curiously at the box in his arms. 

“Oh Tony,” he sighed, taking the box from him. 

He guided Tony to the dining room table and reappeared with a knife and plate. He cut a delicate slice- a mere sliver, really- from the cake, and deposited it onto the plate and pushed it to Tony. 

Tony studied the piece. It caught just a bit of the bright red frosting of the ‘r’ in _Birthday_ but the rest was gold, like the sun. His favorite colors. 

Tony didn’t know his mom knew what his favorite colors were. 

Obadiah pushed a fork into his hand and patted his shoulder. “I’ll be in the next room, kid.”

It was a while after he left, two hours according to the clock, but two minutes according to Tony, when he finally reached forward and cut just a little corner off his piece, one that practically dripped with frosting. 

It tasted bitter the whole way down. 

* * *

There was another time, far after the accident but not far enough, that Tony revisited his seventeenth birthday cake. 

Rhodey had enlisted in the army, and despite Tony knowing he was going to, in fact, _everyone_ on campus had known Rhodey was going to, Tony couldn’t believe Rhodey had actually done it. 

Rhodey looked so proud and _right_ in his uniform that Tony didn’t speak a word of what he thought, and instead just forced a grin and made a joke about being Rhodey’s sweetheart who was eagerly awaiting his letters home that made the both of them crack up. 

In the end, Rhodey had put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a look that said he knew, because it was Rhodey and Rhodey always knew. 

So Tony took him back to his house where he poured them each an expensive glass of liquor and cut them both a small piece of cake. 

Tony was pleased to note it didn’t taste as bitter this time around.

* * *

It was a trend from there. 

Bad investment plan that cost Stark Industries millions? Cake.

More than a week with tense radio silence from Rhodey’s latest mission? Cake.

Made Pepper cry? Cake.

It wasn’t a foolproof system. Tony knew he couldn’t have cake whenever he had a bad day, and that one day, it would run out. Still, nearly a third of it was left and he was only in his forties. Tony had hope that he wouldn’t run out anytime soon. 

Later that day, he got a call for Stark Industries to do a business trip in Afghanistan. 

* * *

The world somehow seemed quieter after he emerged from the cave in Afghanistan. There weren’t any loud honks of impatient New Yorkers, or startling yet reassuring clangs from tools DUM-E knocked over, there was just Tony and the desert sand. 

Even as he announced Stark Industries would be shutting down their weapons manufaction he expected to hear a roar of reporters and the clicks of reporters’ cameras, but all that was a distant echo as he let himself be led by Obie to the exit. 

When Tony returned home after three months in a dank cave, the first thing he did was look for his cake. He had to push around some things in his fridge, but eventually he found it tucked away in the back, a mere half of what he’d had before he left remained. 

“What happened?”

“Mr. Stane indulged himself while you were assumed dead,” JARVIS answered stiffly, sounding as annoyed as an AI possibly could. 

And just like that, the world got loud again. 

* * *

The next time Tony had cake, he was sitting on Obie’s- no, _Stane’s_ grave. 

This time it wasn’t bitter, or even vaguely sweet. It just tasted salty from Tony’s tears. 

* * *

The entire Battle of New York had Tony craving cake. His teammates, as strange as they were, admittedly did form a perfect unit. They balanced each others’ weaknesses and built off each others’ strengths, and in the end, the knowledge that Tony had helped form something that was greater than the sum of their parts had given him a strange itch for strawberry frosting, a complete one-eighty from his mother’s vanilla-bean cake she had so kindly made for him all those years ago, and yeah, there aliens coming from the sky and the chances of none of them getting incredibly hurt or flat-out dying were slim, but right then, all Tony could do was smile. 

* * *

His experience with the wormhole cast away any dreams of strawberry, and after Natasha and Fury had informed him of wanting Iron Man on the Avengers but not Tony, he slipped down his kitchen and sullenly ate two pieces of cake. 

* * *

Tony and Pepper broke up, but he never touched the cake. 

He didn’t deserve it.

* * *

Tony never had the last piece of his cake. 

He woke up in his workshop late one night, chest heaving and heart racing from a nightmare. He ignored JARVIS’s concerned questions and the curious beeps and chirps from DUM-E and Butterfingers, and stumbled up the stairs to the kitchen. 

Clint and Sam were sitting on the couch in the TV room, up playing Mario Kart despite the late hour (why he ever let Pepper talk him into housing a bunch of children he’ll never know), so he walked as quietly as he could to avoid conversation. 

Tony rooted through the freezer, looking for the final slice of cake. He wasn’t going to finish it, not after as something as minor as a nightmare, he just wanted a small cut of frosting if he could manage to relax with as little as that. 

Tony sighed in annoyance as the cake was no longer in its usual spot. With all the Avengers living under one roof, tens of roofs technically, but that’s not the point, people had a habit of moving his cake. 

He began to pull things out to make it easier. He tossed aside Thor’s poptarts, Clint’s ice cream, and Natasha’s knife, which, _why?!_ He dumped Sam’s frozen meals on the floor and recoiled at the sight of dozens of vegetables, because what the hell, Steve? He kindly placed Bruce’s foreign spices on the counter because he at least respects Tony, but kept shoving everything else out. 

And then it was empty. 

Tony sat in the middle of his hurricane, dumbfounded. He turned around and started pulling at the things he’d already removed from the fridge, expecting one of them to contain his final slice of cake. 

Food was spilling out of containers, boxes were getting bent out of shape, and Tony had no idea how much noise he was making, if any at all, because he needed his _cake,_ and he needed it _now._

“Tony?”

He looked up. 

Clint, Sam, and Natasha (when did she get here?) were looking at him with bewilderment. 

And it was then that Tony was able to take in the mess he’d created. Melted ice cream leaked from cartons, semi-frozen vegetables were limply defrosting on the floor, and a few containers were actually broken in his haste to look inside. 

“I…” he rubbed his hand on his wrist and cringed as it pulled away stickily. 

It was then that he noticed the telltale remnants of gold frosting on Clint’s plate on the counter. Without warning, Tony dove to the trash can, making Sam and Clint jump, and sure enough, the white box, no longer as pristine as it’d once been, was lying, empty, on the very top. 

And the whole world went quiet again. 

* * *

Tony spent the next few days in his workshop, working on the latest mark sixty, or seventy, he doesn’t know anymore. Time has blurred together since he left the kitchen, and Tony had no intention of straightening it out again. 

The others occasionally come down to try to get him to open up the door, especially Steve, who came on many occasions, and Tony very pointedly tries not to look at him because he doesn’t need to feel like the worst boyfriend to ever exist on top of everything else, and Tony very nearly breaks when he sees Pepper’s disapproving frown (and also nearly pisses himself out of fear but he’d never admit that), but if he didn’t break when Banner got the Hulk to use his sad eyes then no amount of glaring would get him to open up. 

Tony was in the middle of building his ~~fourth?~~ fifth(?) prototype for new chestplate defenses when JARVIS notified him of an emergency upstairs. 

“Why can’t one of the Wonder Twins deal with it?”

“I’m afraid this matter concerns all present members upstairs, Sir, and it would be in their and your own best interest to see to the dilemma at once.” 

Tony sighed and pushed himself out of his chair. 

“If you’re lying I won’t hesitate to move you to a vacuum cleaner, J.”

JARVIS didn’t respond to his banter, and Tony grew uneasy. 

When he reached the main floor, he expected some big fight between the team, or at least something mildly unusual, instead, he saw the Avengers crowded around the middle of the room, looking pleased and something akin to relief on their expressions as he approached them instead of ducking back into the elevator and leaving like he so desperately wanted to do. 

“There’s no emergency, is there?”

“There is, just not the one you’re expecting,” Natasha replied. 

She nudged Clint in the side. 

He stepped forward, looking sheepish, “I wasn’t really sure what happened the other day with the cake, but I could tell it was important to you, so,” he turned and picked up a container from the counter, “I made you another one.” 

It was a deep purple, highlighted with silver writing on the top: _My bad, buddy!_ that nearly made him laugh. 

“And because that one might not be edible-”

“Hey!”

“I made you this one,” Sam held another cake forward. 

This one was blue with yellow icing reading, ‘ _Just in case Clint bakes as well as he plays Mario Kart’_ that made Tony burst into laughter. 

“Oh _come on!”_

“Read it and weep, bitch.”

They continued light-hearted bickering as Bruce moved forward, and pulling out his own small dish from the counter. His item was a brownie, sprinkled with chopped mint leaves. “I didn’t have high hopes that neither of them would start a cake fight, so I made you something too.”

Steve tipped his own pan down, revealing its contents. “Apple pie,” he explained. 

Like Tony needed any more reasons to love the dork. 

“I made Ptichye Moloko,” Natasha gestured to her own tray of cake-like dessert. 

“And I have made Romkugler!” Thor boomed. His tray was heaped with an assortment of what looked like sprinkles coating balls of cake batter.

“Romkugler is like Danish Rum Balls,” Natasha explained at Tony’s confused expression. 

He immediately perked up, much to the amusement of his teammates. 

“So do you forgive me yet?” Clint asked, slowly waving around his cake as if it could hypnotize Tony into saying yes. 

Which it could. 

Tony shrugged, “Might as well. I wouldn’t get to try any of these if I said ‘no.’” 

The team visibly relaxed.

It was only later that night when they were all tucked onto the couch together, stomachs full of every sweet imagined, and limbs so tangled no one could tell who was on who anymore, that Tony felt comfortable enough in the dim light of a movie playing on the screen to talk about it. 

“The cake was the last one my mom ever made me. She and my father died a few months later in a car accident, and the cake was kind of all I had. Our house was never really a home and I had no strong connections to anything there, but my mom had made that cake for me because she thought I was going to be home for my birthday that year, but I wasn’t,” a sad laugh fell from his lips, “because Howard and I had a disagreement and he told me not to bother.” 

Steve had his sad puppy look again and Tony leaned into him, chest feeling lighter as he leaned back. 

“So every time I had a terrible day, or my world was just going to shit, I’d cut myself a piece. It didn’t solve everything, but it always helped, because my mom loved me, even when I was at my worst.” 

It was quiet for a few minutes until Clint spoke up. 

“It’s hard to believe you were worse when you were a teen, especially since you’re such a shit now.”

Tony scoffed, a wry smile flickering on his lips, “Because you’re such a gentleman.”

“Darn tootin’,” Clint winked, tipping an imaginary hat, and just like that, all the tension from the room dissipated. 

Easy conversation filtered in and out of Tony’s head, making this one of the best moments he’s shared with the team, and then a cupcake with _‘I love you’_ was nudged into his vision, and it’s suddenly the one of the best moments he’s shared with Steve. 

* * *

The next day when Tony opens the freezer, he is pleased to notice an assortment of desserts waiting for him, and a small sticky note in Steve’s steady writing.

_‘Just in case.’_

**Author's Note:**

> I legit wrote this in four and a half hours because my brother's a dick and he stole the last piece of my birthday cake. Also editing's a bitch and I decided to skip it for this one.


End file.
